With the release of beta versions of its Chrome browser for the Mac and Linux platforms, Google looks to be laying the groundwork for becoming a major player in the next wave of computing. The Web browser one uses is being increasingly viewed as the next application platform, and getting the Chrome browser on more desktops could give Google strong momentum in the arena. Google has been behind schedule in launching the Mac version of its Chrome browser, product manager Brian Rakowski acknowledged on the Google blog.

Porting a browser the size and complexity of Chrome is no trivial task at all. There are things like the V8 JavaScript engine and Gears, which needed to be ported as well, to various OSs and architectures. All that means thousands of man/hours of work.